Punjab rebuts blame for power grid collapse

The Punjab government on Tuesday evening rejected any blame for the collapse of the northern, eastern, and north-eastern power grids, which left about half of India without electricity in what is considered the world's biggest-ever power failure.

Four states – Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan – have been accused of overdrawing power almost simultaneously, leading to the collapse of the entire supply system.

But Punjab claimed that its overdrawing from the northern grid was ''minimum'' compared to the other three states.

A government spokesman said when northern grid failed at 2.30 am on Monday, Punjab's overdraw was just 5.5 per cent over its allotted share of power, in comparison to overdrawing by Haryana at 25.5 per cent and UP at 20.8 per cent.

"These figures clearly establish that Punjab has been the most disciplined and frugal of the northern states," the official said. Similarly, at approximately 1.10 pm on Tuesday, when the grid failure occurred for the second day, Punjab's overdraw was a meagre 1.2 per cent of its sanctioned load, while Haryana's overdraw at the same point of time was a whopping 22.4 per cent and UP's was at 6.4 per cent.

Average figures for overdrawing by the three states for July also showed that Punjab was the most "disciplined" of all the northern states. During this month, Punjab's average power overdrawing stood at just 4 per cent, compared to a staggering 31 per cent by UP, Haryana's 17 per cent, and Rajasthan's average of 18 per cent, he claimed.